


Of Gifts from Stolen Things

by TreeNostalgia



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Family Feels, Gen, Generally Canon Compliant, Not much plot, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unreliable Narrator, Varying Chapter Lengths, mostly just... character stuff, mostly short chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreeNostalgia/pseuds/TreeNostalgia
Summary: A temple in the mountains explodes and a hole is rent high above it in the sky, the Fade pouring into Thedas, and the only one to survive the blast is a little elvhen girl who doesn’t speak a word of Common. Kid!quisitorIn which the Inquisition gains a ten-year old and suddenly just about everyone begins to feel… parental.





	1. Olanavera I

**Author's Note:**

> just like, as an aside, there will be Elvhen spoken some in this fic, and it will probably be a lil butchered bc.... while i think languages are interesting, if i'm just reading about them i don't always understand, grammar-wise -- i need worksheets and other aids i guess. also the Elvhen will be based on FenxShiral's Project Elvhen. for the most part i keep it to just a few words or an italicized translation, but sometimes not. also i will be putting direct translations in the notes at the end, if there isn't one within the chapter itself or it isn't a commonly known phrase/word occurring in-game.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young girl wakes up alone.

She remembers her nanae’s reassurances that it would be just like sleeping. She remembers stirring in the Dreaming when something powerful snapped into place around it and around the Waking, _between_ the Waking and the Dreaming. And then she remembers not much else.  


She wakes a long, long time later, alone and shivering.  


The chamber looks different from before. Dusty and cobwebbed. There are tracks in the dust lining the floor, going hither and thither throughout the chamber. She sneezes from all the dust.  


Her things are gone.  


She checks where her nanae had said they would be sleeping. Empty. They’re gone, too, they and their things. But they wouldn’t just leave her, she thinks, confused and hurt and scared. They said they would be there to wake her, but she has awoken alone. Alone and bereft at the way the world feels around her. The air feels as empty as the chamber she awoke in. All magic in it is bare wisps, hardly tangible, alarmingly separate.  


Panic settles in her chest and she doesn’t know how long she cries for, but when she is done and spent and numb, she rises again and makes her way out. She remembers that at least. Her nanae made sure of it. They had made her walk the path until she could walk it alone, as she does so now. _“Just in case,”_ Nanae had assured.  


The way that the sunlight reflects off of the snow makes her eyes water from how bright it is. It is also terribly chilly out here. She reaches out with her magic on instinct, seeking ambient energy to warm herself, but the Dreaming is closed off from the Waking. The Fade is obscured. She falters, brow screwing up in frustration. The simple temperature regulating spell normally takes hardly a thought, but now she must concentrate, and it takes far more of her own magic to cast it without direct access to the magic of the world.  


It takes more magic and the spell is weaker. She is warm for now, but it won’t last long, she knows. So she looks out from her vantage point, hoping for signs of her people. Anything. A smoke trail. Even living in the woods would be better than staying here alone.  


She sees a building made of stone.  


It is better than nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _nanae_ \- parent, gender neutral


	2. Solas I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas meets the Survivor. He's sad about it.

When he is brought to the Survivor and he finally sees her, Solas feels his heart stop in his chest for a beat too long, before it seems to plummet out of his body entirely. The Survivor is a little elven girl, brown skin with silver hair, and dressed simply in breeches and a light tunic. She isn’t dressed for the climate in the mountains, but then again, neither is he, really. But _he_ is a mage and can reliably regulate his own temperature. This little girl, laid out on a plain cot in the Frostback Mountains, is surely the child of a servant or one of the mages meant to be at the Conclave and unlikely to know enough about magic, _if_ she is a mage, to do so.

Regardless, she is an elven child, and she bears the anchor – his magic, his mark. Solas can already see the light of the mark pulsing just as erratically as the Breach outside does. It’s killing her.

His heart constricts. (A _child_. His magic is _killing her_.)

“Can you do anything for her?” asks the soft, almost sibilant tones of the redheaded woman who has led him here, startling Solas out of his thoughts.

Solas steps forward, closer to the Survivor, eyes only on the girl, though he tilts his head in the Spymaster’s direction to indicate he is still paying attention to her. “I will do what I can,” he says, face grave.

  


The girl wakes briefly and infrequently, hardly lucid. But Solas is there beside her, hoping for the best and dreading the worst. He does what he can to mitigate any pain from the anchor marking her hand. (Her _small_ hand. She cannot be more than ten years old, he surmises.)

Once, in the night, she wakes with more of her wits about her than before. Her eyes, gray like a stormy sea, skitter around the room, tracking nothing readily visible to Solas, and finally land on him. Her face relaxes from the fear previously present, and she says in Elvhen, “_May the Dread Wolf guide us to our homes._”

Solas inhales sharply, mouth gone quite suddenly dry. That is one of the old pass phrases. Ancient pass phrase, really, no longer in use by the time he put up the Veil. How could this girl, no older than the last Blight, know it?

It is almost reflex when Solas replies with the answering phrase anyway.

“_You have journeyed many miles, and now you are here,_” he tells her, “_The Dread Wolf welcomes you home._”

A sob escapes the girl even as she smiles with relief. She doesn’t cry for long before unconsciousness takes her again, however, and in the meantime Solas gives her what comfort he can, holding her unmarked hand in his own.

As she sleeps, Solas finds himself with a lot more to consider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first victim!!


	3. Olanavera II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wakes up alone again.

When the Survivor finally awakens fully, it has been three days since she’d been found and brought to Haven, and she wakes up alone once more. A jolt of pain, emanating from her palm and radiating upwards, is what stirs the girl into consciousness. With a hiss, she grabs her ailing arm and curls onto her side around it, clutching her aching hand to her chest. It doesn’t help, and the pain only gets worse. The girl lets out a gasping sob, almost a wail.  


The door to the cabin opens and in strides an older elf and two others, though she hardly notices because it feels like her hand is going to _fall apart_.  


“_It hurts!_” she gasps. “_Nanae, it hurts! Make it stop, please!_”  


She hears someone shush her gently, but the sound is all wrong, and large hands grab her shoulder, and those are wrong too. Too big, too warm, their magic is different.  


_That is not her nanae._  


She wriggles and forces her eyes open despite the pain in her hand to find a bald man leaning over her and gently taking her aching hand in his own. (There is a green glow, though it dims when he takes her hand and she doesn’t know where it’s coming from, and has very little attention to spare it.)  


“_Shhh, it’s all right, little one,_” he says, tone low and soft as he sends soothing magic into her hand. Slowly he crouches at her bedside (she does not remember this bed at all and she doesn’t know where she is, but the building is made of wood) and smiles sadly at her.  


He looks familiar.  


Gray eyes and a scar on his forehead but she does not know him. Maybe he’d been with their group before uthenera? She’s pretty sure she would remember meeting a bald man.  


“_Where is my nanae?_” she sobs.  


“Ir abelas, da’lan,” he says, still holding her hand. He reaches with his free hand to smooth her hair from her face. “_I do not know._”  


She lets him comfort her. She’s been asleep for so long and she misses being touched. She misses her parent most of all, but he soothed the pain in her hand, so maybe she can trust him. Slowly, she stops crying, and she wipes her tears away on her tunic sleeves.  


“_Who are you? Where are we?_” she asks, looking around the cabin. She spots two women hanging back, though observing with looks of confusion and curiosity, respectively. She lowers her voice to a whisper, leaning closer to the bald man. “_Who are they? Why are their ears so funny looking?_”  


One of them says something she doesn’t understand, causing her new friend to turn and acknowledge them, saying something else that she doesn’t understand before he returns his attention to her.  


“_My name is Solas,_” he says. “_We are in a place called _Haven._ Those women are humans and that is why their ears are round. Have you ever met any Children of the Stone? They have round ears as well. The tall one with the scar is named Cassandra, and the one with hair like fire is Leliana. What is your name, little one?_”  


“_Olanavera,_” she says, “_My name is Olanavera._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ir abelas_ \- I am sorry  
_da'lan_ \- little one, feminine
> 
> also.. uh, I kind of use "elven" and "elvhen" interchangeably, but there is a reason! it depends on the perspective for the chapter and the perception. "elven" being more... modern, and "elvhen" more in reference to ancient elves/the language, etc. for example, in the last chapter Solas' POV refers to Olanavera as "elven", so his perception, at first, is that she is a modern, short-lived elf, but in future chapters he may think of her as "elvhen" because of his belief that she is, in fact, an ancient elf and one of his people in exactly the way that he thinks of the Dalish and city elves as not really his people. it's a thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	4. Cassandra I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olanavera gets mad. Cassandra observes.

It is so obvious that the apostate, Solas, cares about the child that Cassandra can see it. From the first moment he had seen the girl, Cassandra suspects. When he rushed into the cabin at the sound of the Survivor’s – Olanavera’s – pained cries, with worry visible in his face and the tension of his shoulders, Cassandra knew.  


It is not that Cassandra does not care for the girl, but with the Breach gaping horribly above the site of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, she finds it difficult to care about much more than closing it. It’s hard to focus on more than fighting demons and getting the girl to the Temple. But every time the Breach expands Cassandra hears her scream, and it is heart-wrenching. She can do little to help Olanavera, to soothe her, not knowing her language, so she waits with as much patience as she can (too little, probably) for Olanavera to recover, for Solas to soothe her and encourage her to keep moving.  


This time, however, Olanavera shouts in anger at Solas, thrusting out her marked hand, neglecting to stand up from where she has fallen to her knees on the path.  


“Rea min rahn!” The girl’s voice cracks and Cassandra’s heart breaks for her. “Ar tel nuvena min rahn! Nuast!”  


Though Cassandra cannot see his face, his grief when Solas speaks is damn near palpable. Cassandra had turned, of course, when Olanavera fell, and now watches the apostate crouch and take the girl’s hand in both of his own, lowering it. His voice is too low for Cassandra to discern any of his words, not that she would understand them in any case. He shakes his head as he speaks.  


Olanavera pouts and demands, “Ahnsul?”  


Whatever Solas’ response is, it makes the girl’s shoulders drop. She is silent, then she sighs and looks to the Breach. She speaks again, and, though Cassandra does not hear her, she sees Olanavera’s mouth move. Solas nods, then helps her to stand once more.  


Olanavera grabs Solas’ hand and does not let go.  


The way that Olanavera had looked at the Breach, with a spark of resolve in her eyes and the green glow of the Fade upon her decides Cassandra. There is little that Cassandra can do to help Olanavera emotionally, but she can fight for and defend her.  


Cassandra Pentaghast will be her sword and her shield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Rea min rahn!"_ \- "Take it!", literally "Remove this thing!"  
_"Ar tel nuvena min rahn! Nuast!"_ \- "I don't want it! It hurts!", literally "I do not want this thing! Hurts!"  
_"Ansuhl?"_ \- "Why?"  

> 
> alternate summary: _Solas’ hand: *is hold*_


	5. Varric I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric wants to say "fuck". Repeatedly.

Varric gets his first true glimpse of the Survivor after she arrives on the scene with the Seeker and their newest apostate. It’s little more than a glance, really, since he, himself, is busy putting bolts into every demonic orifice he spots, but when the demons finally stop manifesting for a moment, Varric hears a shout miraculously not related to fighting. But he doesn’t understand a word of it.  


“Ar ghi’lemah, da’lan!”  


Except maybe that last word? It sounds familiar. Maybe he’ll ask.  


Varric turns, nonetheless, and sees Baldy (he’ll come up with something better, he promises himself) steadying the arm of a little elven girl, directing her glowing hand at the rift in the Veil with one hand while the other holds the girl’s other shoulder. The thing in her hand sparks in a way that makes it look like liquid and lightning at the same time – it’s utterly unnatural – and with a shout from the girl the Mark connects to the rift. She grits her teeth and grabs her wrist with her other hand, shaking and—growling? There is a fucking snarl on that little elf’s face (not an unfamiliar expression, actually, now that he thinks about it) and there is a sound, a roaring, that reverberates, rumbling in a way that suggests that, yes, she is absolutely growling, but that the rift seems to be responding. Or maybe the Fade is?  


It's so fucking weird.  


Either way, her snarl and the sound responding overlap. She almost sounds like a pack of wolves all on her own. Varric can feel it rumbling in his chest.  


And then the connection between the girl and the rift snaps with the sound of gnashing teeth, the rift closes, and the force of it doing so blasts outward.  


It’s a good thing that Solas is bracing the girl, because she falls back against the older elf and goes limp for a moment.  


It’s quiet. No clashing and clanging, no demons, no shouts. Just the world, just harsh breaths.  


Then, “Ladanem?” asks a little voice. It takes Varric a moment to realize that it was the girl, the Survivor, who spoke. For _some reason_ he was expecting something deeper and more… feral. But maybe that’s disingenuous. He’s not even sure that the sounds he heard were real. He decides to keep that particular experience to himself.  


“She did it,” comes then the dazed voice of Varric’s favorite Nevarran. “The Mark really can close the rifts.”  


Varric turns to find Cassandra watching the two elves with rapt attention, hope burning in her eyes, sword and shield still drawn though her arms have dropped.  


“We can close the Breach,” the Seeker breathes out. Then she corrects herself, “_She_ can close the Breach."  
  


  


“Seeker…” Varric says slowly, the familiar red glow emanating from the mineral jutting up from the ground giving him pause, panic, and several plainly unpleasant memories. “You know that’s red lyrium, right?”  


He barely catches sight of Cassandra turning her head to him, then back to the red lyrium. Her voice is tight when she answers, “I see it, Varric.”  


“But what’s it _doing here?_” Varric has several choice curses he wants very much to voice, but the situation and the presence of a child – even one who, apparently, can’t understand him – stays him. He’d hoped never to see that shit again, and now—! Now it’s at the Temple of Sacred Ashes? That said nothing good, not in his book.  


“Perhaps,” Solas begins, hesitant and ponderous and tense, “Perhaps there was a lyrium deposit lying dormant just beneath the temple, but it was corrupted during the blast that caused the Breach?”  


Varric casts a glance the elf’s way. Solas is guiding the kid, Olanavera, in a way that places him between her and the red lyrium, even as she buries her face into his side, muttering something to herself. Muttering a single word over and over, while clutching at Solas’ tunic and pressing her marked hand to one of her ears.  


“Telam. Telam telam telam telam telam.”  


Varric isn’t sure what that word means, but whatever it is, it isn’t good, that’s for sure.  


And the situation only goes to shit from there. From the voice of whatever villain exploded the temple, to the vision of the Divine held captive and telling little elven Olanavera to run and warn them, to the Pride demon, until finally the first rift is closed, and the Breach is – while not sealed – calmed. This time Olanavera says nothing, just falls in a heap to the ground, unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“Ar ghi’lemah, da’lan!”_ \- "I will guide you, little one!"  
_“Ladanem?”_ – “Fixed/mended?”  
_“Telam. Telam telam telam telam telam.”_ – “Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad.”


	6. Josephine I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine is too polite to say "fuck".

It has been well noted that the elven apostate, Solas, has taken the Survivor – the Herald of Andraste – under his wing so to speak. Several reasons for which become immediately clear when Josephine meets Olanavera for the first time. She has known that the Herald is an elf and fairly young. She knows as well that every time someone describes the moment of the Herald appearing from out of the rift, they say, “She stepped out of the rift, and behind her stood blessed Andraste!” or something similar.  


And so, until the moment that Josephine meets Olanavera all that she knows is that she is young, elven, and female. Leliana tells her that Solas will escort the Herald to see her after breakfast the next day. Josephine has no idea what revelations she will have.  


“An’daran atish’an,” Josephine greets the apostate and the Herald of Andraste, glancing briefly from the little girl and back to Solas. She pauses. Looks again at the little girl. The child’s skin is brown, perhaps a shade darker than her own, and her hair is a shining silver, though this is not what draws Josephine’s attention, even if her look is striking. Her left hand, fisted at her side, is glowing. It glows green like the Breach that churns, gaping horribly in the sky.  


The Herald of Andraste is a child. _Young_, indeed. Leliana will be hearing some choice words from Josephine for keeping this from her.  


“Enastesha. You speak the language of the People?” Solas asks with some surprise, derailing Josephine’s thoughts.  


“Well,” she starts, stalling for words and feeling sheepish, “You have just heard the extent of it, I am afraid.”  


She sees Solas’ expression shutter, for lack of a better term, in what seems to be disappointment. “I see,” he says, inflectionless. Then he affects a small, humble smile, and introduces himself and his charge. “My name is Solas,” he says, and then gestures toward the child beside him, “and this is Olanavera. You must be Ambassador Montilyet.”  


“Yes, Josephine Montilyet, formerly the Antivan Ambassador to Orlais, at your service,” Josephine says, nodding her head and giving a shallow curtsy. When she straightens, she too gestures to the little elven girl, asking, “And Miss Olanavera, she is the Herald—”  


“—of Andraste, yes,” Solas finishes when Josephine hesitates. Then he adds, “So they say.”  


The girl makes a displeased sound and in very accented Common, mutters with a huff, “Herald of Andraste.” And then she says something else in Elvhen, a longer string of words than Josephine has ever heard in the language, even from a Dalish elf. Olanavera exclaims something about “Fen’Harel” (and that sounds almost familiar, actually) and then a most surprising thing happens – Solas laughs, and turns to the girl to reply in the same language.  


All word of the apostate has reported that the man is very serious, so to hear him laugh seems strange. Josephine delicately clears her throat. Solas turns his attention back to her and smiles a little more genuinely.  


“Apologies, Ambassador,” Solas says, still smiling – possibly from amusement at whatever it is that the Herald has said. “Olanavera does not speak the Common Tongue, but she has begun recognizing the phrase ‘Herald of Andraste’. She does not like it, to say the least.”  


“Oh! That does explain some things,” Josephine allows. “Though, if I may ask, what is it that she said?”  


Solas chuckles, looking a little embarrassed but amused, nonetheless. “She said that she does not know who Andraste is, and that she would rather be called ‘Herald of the Dread Wolf’.”  


“The Dread Wolf?” Josephine repeats, utterly curious and a little surprised, given what she has gleaned from tales. “From Dalish myth?”  


His smile changes again to something a little stiff this time. “The Dalish believe that Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, betrayed the People by locking away their gods,” Solas explains.  


Something in the way he says “Dalish” suggests to Josephine that he does not approve of them or their views. Interesting. But, well, Solas’ explanation certainly puts into perspective Olanavera’s opinion on her unofficial title. Josephine will have to be very careful in her letters, to spin all of these newly revealed facts into something positive for the fledgling Inquisition. But first she must gather more information.  


“I see,” Josephine says, inclining her head in a nod before bidding the apostate and his charge to join her at her desk for tea and sweets.  


Aside from the things she learns about Olanavera through Solas’ translations, she also learns – much to her amusement – that Solas dislikes tea and makes quite the face whenever he ventures to take a sip of it, but he likes sweets. Olanavera on the other hand, seems to like both, and even goes so far as to – as far as Josephine can tell – offer to finish Solas’ tea for him. He lets her.  


It's endearing, really.  


Josephine decides that even if it had not been her duty, that she will do everything she can in her power to protect the little girl who even now is reaching for another scone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“An’daran atish’an.”_ – a formal greeting, meaning “The place you go is a place of peace.”  
_“Enastesha.”_ – a proper response to the above greeting, meaning “Graced,” shortened from a phrase meaning “Blessed to be here.”
> 
> do i intentionally write terrible summaries for each chapter? oh _absolutely_. it amuses me deeply to do so  

> 
> in other news, i struggled with this chapter some.... which is part of why it's been......... uhhhhhhhhh 3+ months oops since the last update. Solas can be pretty verbose but ghhghhhghhgn i wrote something i thought he'd say at first but then i was like. no. no he wouldn't be so obvious. would he? the guy who wears a wolf jaw necklace as an homage to his own fuckin' name? anyway. had to figure out something else. it's a little clunky but.... i'm more satisfied with what i wrote instead.  

> 
> also sorry for not replying to every comment! i'm actually p shy and anxiety-ridden. please rest assured that i have not ignored your comments, and in fact love and appreciate them very much. thank you for reading! thank you for commenting! thank you for kudos and subscriptions! it's humbling and validating and i'm getting choked up about it. thank you again


End file.
